I just discovered today, that They Might Be Giants has a podcast! I’m way late in discovering this, as the first episode was from the summer of 2005. They have released three episodes so far. I don’t know how often they are putting them out, as only the first podcast is dated. There are unreleased recordings and assorted “stuff” in there. And they are really cool.
In other They Might Be Giants (TMBG) news, they are promoting a new DVD bundle of their Venue Songs. What is Venue Songs, you ask? On their site, they explain: “At each stop of their 2004 tour, TMBG wrote, arranged and performed a brand new song, dedicated to that evening’s venue. Hence the name, Venue Songs. Each song came together in one day, as a surprise for the audience.”
The Venue Songs DVD features original videos of the Venue Songs, and a weird story about a deranged millionaire that wants to lock up the Venue Songs forever. It makes for some silly watching, TMBG style!
TMBG are releasing the original Venue Songs videos, compressed for the web, on their website every week, one video for each “venue” in the album. There are also three bonus videos from the DVD on the site. They’re funny and goofy, just like the songs. I like them a lot!
The Venue Songs DVD also features a DVD-quality video of Homestarrunner’s “Experimental Film” Flash cartoon episode, for which TMBG wrote an original song. ( If you don’t know Homestarrunner, it’s the best Flash cartoon, ever! ) This video is not available on TMBG’s website, although you can see the original web-quality-sound Flash cartoon at the URL above.
Go check out They Might Be Giant’s podcast, and go check out Homestar Runner. They’re silly, zany, web-powered fun!
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Fans of the Giants will also likely enjoy the fan-based audioblog / podcast found at Theynow.com!
Am I like the only guy that’s never heard this band? I’ve heard Jonathan Coulton described as being like TMBG, and his performance partner John Hodgman acted the part of the deranged millionaire,so hmm… I’m checking out podcast-thx for link.
here is link for John Hodgman in case you don’t have it: http://www.areasofmyexpertise.com/
BB, I’m sure Mr. Me will correct me
but this is the gist of it.
TMBG is an “alternative rock” band started in 1982 in NY. They were never as big as Phish, Nirvana, or The Spin Doctors, but have a rather large fan base.
Like Phish, The Grateful Dead, early Bruce Springsteen, and now Jonathan Coulton and some others, TMBG has a thing for free music distribution. That might explain the large fan base. They set a trend with dial-a-song, a 1-800 number that featured a new song every week. Sound familiar? That’s not the only Jonathan Coulton influence.
Jonathan’s zany lyrics are the main thing I can identify as being TMBG-like out of his style. He is more acoustic than they are. TMBG’s sound is a bit grungier, without being totally punk like Nirvana. And like JoCo, TMBG sing well, which I can’t say about Nirvana or The Spin Doctors.
Mr. Me, feel free to post any links to any fact corrections. I speak as a sometime fan and not a musicophile, so you probably want to jump in and take over now.
PJ-thanks for the music history info. MM-I see that JoCo recently was on your show.